Full of energy but nothing more

Rating: 3/10 (3 August 2005)

THE ISLAND is this summer's action blockbuster, at least it's supposed to be. And if there's one predictable director surfing in Hollywood it's Michael Bay. It's gonna be loud, lots of shiny and glossy features and collateral damage that makes the budget fly like a butterfly, but does it sting like a bee? Well, sometimes it does - but not always. Michael Bay often simply packs his movies with action and explosions and nothing more, making them very uninteresting, boring and seem like a Trojan horse but not with the soldiers inside. And with the huge failure of BAD BOYS 2 he simply purified this image and personality of movie making, the more cars we smash and shots that are fired, the better the movie is! And here he goes a bit psychological, not without succeeding too big, he introduces us to another kind of world where former Obi-Wan Kenobi and Lost In Translation star Scarlett lives without knowing that they're not "real" humans.
So without the big things happening in the start, we're simply introduced to a world that seems very optimistic with the health etc. Where people eat vegetables and cereal and drink water, they were white clothes and are kept in no contact of the males and females. Sean Bean stars as the boss above it all, though it seems he's got a bit too much humanity into this system - it blows up when Lincoln (McGregor) takes Jordan (Johansson) away to escape from the "place". So they discover the real world, were they understand that their former lives was all a lie...
Steve Buscemi is a actor working on both sides; on one level he's a brilliant actor that matches brilliantly into weird atmospheres and on as in Fargo and The Big Lebowski, but then again he can show up in stupid characters. As here, as in Armageddon - and here he plays a working Joe that's leaking too much information to McGregor. Out in the real world he starts helping them escape, and by a weird reason - he really doesn't fit into anything here.
So, Bay shooting action and excitement into THE ISLAND, it's a movie offering you the aspects of summer entertainment. Good-looking actors into a good looking movie, shining with everything from the typical in - between comedic situations and the romance. It's by no mean a triumph for nobody involved though, Michael Bay simply keeps on his wave of action movies - Ewan McGregor does a pretty okay job, but is nothing as we've seen in TRANSPOTTING and the Star Wars movies in fact, and Scarlett Johansson doesn't do much of a performance actually. It's pretty amusing to see Sean Bean again, a actor that's very underrated - Michael Clarke Duncan stars in a tiny role and Buscemi doesn't belong here. Not much fancy footwork going on in this movie, but it sure is entertainment for the money.
And off course; a Michael Bay movie? Hey, what can we expect? It's action and gigs blowing up.